Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Cathaoirleach. It is my first time coming before the House with him in the Chair and I wish him all the best in his role.

I thank Senator Seery Kearney for raising this important matter.The discussion today provides a welcome opportunity to provide an update on the progress on the programme for Government commitment to ensure that transgender, gender non-conforming and intersex people have explicit protection within equality grounds. I am taking this Commencement matter on behalf of the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman. He would love to have been here because he has done so much work on this subject. He could talk about this matter without the script and he could have an over-and-back debate. I am going to read his script but, as the Senator knows, the Minister is very engaged on this issue.

As Senators will be aware, this commitment is being brought forward as part of a comprehensive review of the Equality Acts under way in the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth. As I said, this is being led out by the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman. Ireland has become a proud, progressive and modern State that supports and cherishes all people equally. We have made great strides in recent decades to promote equality and respond to the changing needs of a diverse population. We have a proud record as a champion of human rights internationally and have been at the vanguard of change in advancing equality for LGBTI+ people. We continue to strive to be at the forefront of real, positive and impactful change in the lives of LGBTI+ communities.

Despite these advances, challenges remain and LGBTI+ people continue to face significant barriers to full participation in public life and experience unacceptable levels of harassment, violence and discrimination. The Government is committed to addressing these barriers, including through commitments under the national LGBTI+ inclusion strategy, which also contains a specific action to review the Employment Equality Acts and Equal Status Acts to ensure that transgender, non-conforming and intersex people have explicit protection within the equality grounds.

The Equality Acts - the Employment Equality Acts 1998 to 2015 and the Equal Status Acts 2000 to 2015 - are a central pillar in our equality infrastructure. Discrimination is defined as treating one person in a less favourable way than another person based on nine grounds, namely, gender, civil status, family status, sexual orientation, religion, age, disability, race, including colour, nationality or ethnic or national origins, and membership of the Traveller community, with a housing assistance ground also applicable for the Equal Status Acts.

The review of the Equality Acts will include consideration of the scope of existing grounds and whether additional grounds, such as a socio-economic ground, should be considered. The review will also consider the functioning and accessibility of the Acts, whether existing exemptions should be modified or removed and whether the legislation adequately addresses intersectionality. The review of the Equality Acts commenced with a public consultation process which received an extensive response. I do not think any of us would be surprised by that. These submissions are currently being considered by officials and will inform the development of policy and legislative proposals, which the Minister intends to publish by mid-year. A report of the consultation process will be published in the coming weeks. As work on the review is ongoing, it is not possible to give an indication of the approach that will be taken. It is important that any amendments to existing grounds or introduction of new grounds be given detailed legal consideration to ensure the legislation will appropriately address the issues at hand.

Once again, I thank the Senator for bringing this issue before the House and the Cathaoirleach for choosing it.